Preaching To Unconverted - The London Free Press, 3rd July 1999

A huge success at home, this Welsh band is trying to establish a profile in North America.

Being celebrated by the British music press as "the best band in the world" means very little these days, says Manic Street Preachers frontman James Bradfield.

His band has enjoyed that distinction, storming the Brit awards in 1997 and taking home best band and best album honours for its last album, Everything Must Go.

Being big at home has been nice, says Bradfield, but it means "bloody nothing these days."

"It's all press-led in Britain and it's a little silly," says Bradfield, slightly groggy from a lightning press tour of the U.S.

"It's still one of the only countries in the world that has a national music weekly press, so it's in their interest to nominate gods once in a while to sell copies."

The Manic Street Preachers gained a following in the U.K. by producing pretty, haunting pop anthems with sharp teeth -- smart music an intellectual peg higher than the politically non-committal slacker mush of other British exports.

Their stance on the left of the political spectrum is no accident, says Bradfield.

The Manic Street Preachers are the product of a small, tough Welsh mining town, a place it was hard to grow up in without acquiring a political stripe, he says.

The latest album's title, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, is a phrase coined by Welsh politician Aneurin Bevan, a former miner who became the architect of Britain's National Health Service.

The first single from the album, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, is a tribute to the volunteers who served in the International Brigade against General Franco's fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

Selling records in Britain has never translated into success in North America for the Street Preachers, and even their more marketable contemporaries -- Oasis, Blur and Bush -- haven't captivated audiences here of late.

Despite constant suggestions from the music industry that groups like theirs could tip off another so-called British invasion, Bradfield thinks that has long become an industry cliche.

"It's part of the attitude you grew up with, being young and excited and stupid and seeing all those images of the Beatles landing at JFK," he says.

"But that won't happen again."

The group has gone through enough ups and downs over the last few years to feel truly grateful it's still around, Bradfield says.

"There's nothing we feel we have to prove. We are survivors and that in itself is something of an accomplishment."

Manager and close friend Philip Hall died of cancer in 1993, then guitarist Richey Edwards, who had suffered a previous nervous breakdown, disappeared without a trace in 1995.

"It was very much a personal thing for us because we all grew up in the same small town," says Bradfield.

"It wasn't like 'Aw, the band's broken up,' it was like one of your best friends has gone missing."

To make the loss more painful, rumours that Edwards had been seen in various places around the world began to circulate.

"It's people who want to be a part of and perpetuate a rock myth," Bradfield says sadly. "We never talk about him as if he's dead."

When the band tours North America this summer, the goal is to make a breakthrough, but not necessarily a commercial one.

"(We're) just hoping to actually play for some people for once. I think it would be arrogant for us to write songs about some of those issues and not want them to be heard by people.

"I'm not going to be humble. I think we're brilliant. I think something like If You Tolerate This, for me, is some of the best we've ever done, so I'm not going to hide while somebody else is saying it's good. I'm going to agree, obviously."